


Ten Facts About Henry and Catherine Darcy

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Series: Ten Facts About . . . [5]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten flashes into the lives of Darcy and Elizabeth, in a reality where their genders are reversed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Henry

(10)  His family calls him _Hal_, the neighbours call him _Harry_, and his friends call him _Bennet.  _

Catherine calls him _Henry._

__(9)   Henry is delicate as a child, and his mother goes into hysterics whenever he so much as sneezes.  He doesn't know why, until Kitty comes along, gasping and coughing her way through infancy. 

Neither Mrs Bennet nor anybody else evinces the slightest concern for her_._

(8)  When Henry is fifteen, he doesn't want to marry anyone, ever.

If he has to, though, he wants it to be someone like his uncle Gardiner's new wife.

(7)  Henry loves singing.

Catherine also loves his singing, though it doesn't prevent her from pointing out every error. 

(6)  Henry’s eyes are grey, but so dark that they are nearly always mistaken for brown.

Of all Mrs Bennet's children, only Henry and Lydia have inherited her eyes.

(5)  Henry does not fall in love with Catherine when he reads her letter.

He still wants to kill Wickham for touching her.

(4)  Henry adores novels, the more sensational the better.  He thinks _Cecilia_ was nonsense, though.

When the time comes, he changes his name without a qualm.

(3)  Henry always leans backward or to the sides, but in such a manner as to imply the world would implode if he ever sat upright.

(2)   Henry adores his sister Jane.

Sometimes, though, he longs to box her ears.

(1)  Henry knows he will never be half the landlord his wife is, and doesn't particularly care. 

After all, she will never be half the hostess _he_ is.


	2. Catherine

(10) Her cousins call her _Kate_, her sister and aunt call her _Catherine_, and everybody else calls her _Miss Darcy _or _madam.  _

Catherine doesn't know what Henry will call her.

(9) At eight, Catherine is tall for her age and bursting with health.  Given the rudiments of her father's principles and her mother's manners, she is largely left to run wild about Pemberley -- until she tumbles from a tree and breaks her arm. 

Charming, flighty Lady Anne is white with horror when she accompanies Lady Catherine into the sickroom.  She lifts Catherine's face up to the light and turns it this way and that, wiping the tears off her cheeks.

"Thank God!" she tells her sister.  "Her face is not scratched."

(8) Catherine is a bridesmaid at her cousin Cassandra's wedding.  It is all frightfully dull:  Lady Darcy trying to cry, Lavinia and Philadelphia yawning through the breakfast, Sir George and Cassandra stealing long, meaningful glances at each other.

Catherine wishes Lord Rochford and Captain Fitzwilliam had come; they are not _Darcys_, of course, but at least she would have someone to talk to.

(7) She plays the pianoforte badly, because she cannot be bothered to practise -- and also, perhaps, because her lessons came to an abrupt end when she flung her book at the music master's head.

She sings beautifully, because she always had a gift for it -- and so, naturally, she slaves away at it for ten years, honing her talent to a sharp edge.  For Catherine, mediocrity carries with it the fires of hell: she will be magnificent, or she will be nothing at all.

(She still loathes performing.)

(6) Catherine has deep blue eyes.

She cannot say who they came from -- not because she has the slightest uncertainty about her parentage (heaven forbid!), but because Lady Anne's mother was a Carteret, and the Howard-Darcy-Carterets have bound themselves together so tightly that it's difficult to say where one family ends and the other begins.  The degree of resemblance varies, but her grandmothers were first cousins twice over and -- well, it is just difficult to say.

(5) Catherine does not fall in love with Henry after that disastrous scene at Hunsford. 

No, she intends to accept him for weeks before that, even though he is not rich, high-born, well-connected, or even exceptionally handsome, because _she loves him._  And nothing that happens there, or at Pemberley, or in Hertfordshire, alters that in the slightest.

(4) Catherine reads voraciously:  novels, essays, biographies, histories, anything she can find.  She firmly believes that an accomplished woman is, above all, well-read -- which gives her a ready excuse for it.

She thinks _Cecilia _is a brilliant, if somewhat heavy-handed, exploration of the fascinating and complex pride-prejudice dynamic.

(3) Catherine always sits upright -- in such a manner as to imply that the world would implode if she ever permitted herself the slightest slouch.

(2) Catherine knows that Jane Bennet is every bit the angel Mr Bingley thinks she is, the sort of person everyone loves, the sort of woman every other woman should be.

Catherine cannot see her without longing to throw crockery at her head.

(1) During their engagement, Catherine sometimes worries about how they will manage Pemberley.  It is _hers_, and she loves it with all the tranquil intensity of her peculiar disposition -- but Henry's name is just as much _his_, and he is prepared to give that up for her.  Surely she can cede some part of her authority to him.

In the event, however, it is not necessary; Henry only laughs and says, "Good God, Catherine, what would I do that you cannot manage just as easily, and twice as well?"

(Later, when he throws himself into planning their first ball, Henry belatedly asks for his wife's contributions.  Catherine looks blank, then bursts out laughing.)


End file.
